Military Review English Edition July-August 2016 | Page 75

ARTILLERY

The 101st DIVARTY reactivated in 2014 and
participated in two division-level warfighter exercises (WFXs) in one year. During these exercises, the
101st DIVARTY relearned essential skills, developed
new procedures, and had the unique opportunity to
re-evaluate lessons learned to identify best practices for
dealing with organizational and operational challenges.
This article provides a brief background of WFXs and
common fires issues, outlines the context of the 101st
DIVARTY’s training scenarios, and summarizes four
important lessons learned as best practices.

Warfighter Exercise Background and
Commonly Observed Issues
WFXs are distributed, multiechelon, and multicomponent events focused on training mission command
to brigade-, division-, and corps-level commanders
and staffs in unified land operations scenarios.1 These
scenarios focus on mission-essential tasks and core
warfighting competencies using an adjustable operating
environment against a hybrid, near-peer adversary in
an austere theater of operations.
The U.S. Army Combined Arms Center Mission
Command Training Program (MCTP) at Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas, is the principal combat training center for mission command training and hosts
WFXs.2 Observer/controller/trainers are subject-matter experts who coach, teach, and mentor participating
staffs, while MCTP senior mentors coach commanders
during the training events.
Experience has shown that MCTP trainers and
mentors consistently note common issues experienced by
units they observe. For example, across the warfighting
functions, most issues stem from challenges associated
with integrating and synchronizing division efforts at the
operational level of war. Divisions typically struggle to
delineate fights within the deep-close-security operational framework, to synchronize combined arms maneuver,
and to effectively target. They also consistently underestimate sustainment needs and insufficiently plan protection efforts. Focusing on fires, MCTP observers frequently note that DIVARTYs labor to weight the main effort
with artillery assets, conduct insufficient planning, and
produce limited assessments during the decide, detect,
deliver, and assess (D3A) targeting process.3
In contrast, The 101st DIVARTY minimally experienced these deficiencies during its two WFXs. This
MILITARY REVIEW  July-August 2016

allowed the organization to focus instead on improving its collective fires skills and developing techniques
needed to support the division.

101st DIVARTY Training Scenarios
The 101st DIVARTY participated in WFXs 1505 and 16-02. The first occurred in support of the
36th Infantry Division (Texas National Guard) less
than eight months after the DIVARTY’s activation.
This event served as the 101st DIVARTY’s validation exercise. It also provided an opportunity to test
the DIVARTY’s modularity by having it serve as the
force fires headquarters (FFHQ) for a National Guard
division in accordance with the Army Total Force
initiative.4
DIVARTY’s second exercise supported the 101st
Airborne Division (Air Assault), and was the first time it
fully integrated within its parent division as the FFHQ.
Both scenarios replicated a decisive-action environment in a fictional country. The primary adversary
possessed near-peer capabilities (i.e., combat systems
with capabilities similar to or better than our own) and
presented itself as a hybrid threat combining conventional and irregular forces. Each scenario contained
similar elements, such as a forward passage of lines held
by host-nation forces, offensive operations, a contested
river crossing, and rear-area security operations. The
main differences between the scenarios centered on the
impacts of terrain, the enemy’s defensive capabilities,
and friendly-force task organization for combat.
Overall, the similarities between the scenarios
allowed the 101st DIVARTY to relearn doctrine
and validate its decisive-action proficiency. Scenario
differences facilitated the development of new tactics,
techniques, and procedures supported by doctrine.

Key Lessons Learned
The following discussion highlights the 101st
DIVARTY’s four key lessons learned regarding battlefield geometry, the division counterfire fight, unmanned
aircraft system (UAS) integration, and fires planning.
Battlefield geometry. Coordinating and synchronizing fires is one of a DIVARTY’s primary
duties as the FFHQ. Although there had been limited
DIVARTY participation in WFXs since reactivation, initial MCTP observations highlighted difficulties DIVARTY and division headquarters had with
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